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Drainage Infrastructure Struggling to Cope in Extreme Weather

Experts agree that the impact of Birmingham’s recent floods was mitigated thanks to regular maintenance of the city’s drainage system.
Over the last weekend in May, the city of Birmingham experienced some of the worst flooding it has seen in living memory. The floods were a result of freak weather conditions that saw a month’s rainfall dumped on the city in the space of a single hour.
Experts from Birmingham City Council have teamed up with academics from the University of Birmingham to look into the events, and have agreed that the city’s ageing drainage infrastructure coped remarkably well, thanks largely to the rigorous drain cleaning programme that takes place all year round. However, as a result of the flooding, there are now blocked drains throughout the city that need urgent attention before more heavy rain blows in.

Shocking scenes in and around Birmingham

Suburbs to the south of Birmingham bore the brunt of the rain that arrived with almost supernatural force over the weekend of 26th and 27th May. Kings Heath, Selly Oak, Stirchley and Harborne were hit particularly hard.
National TV and media showed shocking images of cars almost submerged in water, and local fire and rescue crews were summoned to more than 100 different incidents in the space of just four hours over the course of late afternoon and early evening on the Sunday.
Passengers had to be rescued from a bus that had come to a halt in five feet of flood water on Oakfield Road in Selly Oak, and the floods claimed one fatality, an 80 year old man whose car became submerged in flood water in Walsall, 10 miles to the north of central Birmingham.